The Windows Phone app store is shedding its ghost town image

Although Windows Phone’s app market trails the iOS and Android app markets in just about every metric, it has received some good news the past couple days. On Wednesday, Instagram launched its Windows Phone app (though, without video support). On Thursday, a Strategy Analytics suvey suggests app developers are warming up to Windows Phone. And to cap it all off, Microsoft has now released some statistics to Neowin that show increased activity on the Windows Phone platform.

According to Microsoft, 10 million app transactions happen every day and a total of 3 billion apps have been downloaded since the Windows Phone Store opened in 2010. The company also boasts that the Windows Phone Store has about 190,000 apps with 500 new apps added each day. All these apps have resulted in a 181% increase in monthly app revenue from a year ago and a 290% increase in overall app downloads from a year ago.

Microsoft also announced that Nokia’s Lumia smartphone sales have increased 366 percent in the U.S. compared to last year and 48 percent in Europe. Overall, Windows Phone device shipments are up 178 percent compared to last year.

While these numbers are trending nicely and the Windows Phone ecosystem is clearly in third place, it remains to be seen whether there is room for a third place. Windows Phone’s market share is still very low, and despite the addition of some big name apps, there are many popular apps missing.